


Take the Chain From Off the Door

by evgrrl09



Category: Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Ingrid Michaelson inspired, Post-Canon, Romance, i played with the timeline a bit, my first LOCI fic, sort of canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:36:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27128005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evgrrl09/pseuds/evgrrl09
Summary: A figure from the past brings up memories and feelings for Alex Eames she thought she'd left behind long ago. B/A pairing.
Relationships: Alexandra Eames/Robert Goren
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19





	1. Pieces of Her That Had Already Died

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my very first post on AO3. I recently got back into writing fanfics as a stress-reliever from work and grad school.
> 
> This is also my very first LOCI fic. Lots of inspiration came from Ingrid Michealson's music.
> 
> Thank you for clicking on this story, and drop a review if you feel so inclined!

_Do you remember when the walls fell_   
_Do you remember the sound that the door made when you closed it on me_   
_Do you know that I went down_   
_To the ground, landed on my broken heart and knees_   
_\- Ingrid Michaelson_

XXXXX

  
The policeman’s ball couldn’t have fallen on a worse day. For the last five years, this day haunted her. An ever present ache dwelled beneath her skin, rooted in her bones. But on this anniversary, the very day it happened, a deep numb spread through her body. The first year brought tears, the second brought pain, the third and fourth brought rage. This one, the fifth, brought a chill to her heart.

“You alright there?” Derek asked on her arm. “Ready for your first night out in awhile?”

  
Alex tilted her head to look at her date. She forced a smile, knowing he would be unable to see through it. For all his sweetness, the firefighter was hardly an observer of human behavior. Sure, he was younger than her, but he made her feel desirable and was fun enough to take her mind off the bitterness of her current circumstance. She may have been a lieutenant in the NYPD, one working with Homeland Security to bring down terrorists. She may have had a family she loved and who loved her.  
What she lacked was something to ignite a fire in her blood. Something to engender a wickedness that led to tingles in her toes.

Once, she’d had that.

  
“Yeah,” she said, leaning over to kiss his cheek. Even as she kissed his cheek, she couldn’t stop herself from checking her phone inside her clutch. No texts from her father.

  
A squeeze of his hand drew her back to him. “Everything will be fine,” he assured her. “Your dad seems like he’s more than capable.”

  
“Look at you being all sweet,” she said, only a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

  
Derek blushed. He didn’t identify the bite in her voice. “Well, you look beautiful tonight. In case I hadn’t mentioned it before.”

  
Glancing down at her outfit, Alex couldn’t help but smile. She did look beautiful. She looked damn fine tonight. Her black chiffon dress hugged every curve of her body. The neckline was far from modest, plunging deep down her chest and giving everyone a generous view of the parts of her body she didn’t necessarily flaunt on a daily basis. Her blonde locks were pulled up and pinned to her head with gold hair clips. It had been a long time since she had been able to get dressed up.

  
As the two ascended the staircase to the level of the venue the ball was being held at, she marveled at the decadent designs. The ballroom was decorated, no expense spared. The chandeliers cast a warm gold haze over the massive room. A jazz orchestra played at the head of the room, surrounding the stage. A single podium stood on the stage, flags lining the entire back side. She and Derek had arrived fashionably late, so most of the attendees already mingled through the hall. One glance around the room and Alex was able to identify several faces. The Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner. The Chief of Detectives. Captain Hannah. She spied Olivia Benson, too, speaking with Captain Cragen. Across the room was the open bar.

  
“I’m going to head over to the bar,” she said, untangling her arm from Derek’s. “Why don’t you go find us a seat?”

  
Derek nodded. “Sure. Would you get me a glass of whatever the best red is?”

  
“Sure thing,” she said over her shoulder. She was grateful to be on her own, even if it was for just a moment. Derek’s arm on hers had been stifling. Her heels clicked against the marble floor as she passed familiar faces without names attached to them. Several of them made eye contact with her. All she could do was smile tightly and pretend she remembered who they all were.

  
At the bar, Alex flagged down the bartender and ordered herself a bourbon. She would order Derek’s red wine in a moment. First, she needed to get herself buzzed. The night was already going to be a long one because of the ball. But combine a policeman’s ball she didn’t want to be at, a pair of shoes that made her legs look miles long but also gave her blisters, and the fact it was five years ago today her partner had walked out on her without a word, and she was left with one miserable fucking evening.  
Jazz music filled the hall as various law enforcement officers mingled and clinked glasses with one another. Alex couldn’t help but cringe at the insincerity of so many of her colleagues. She never doubted their ability to do the job, but when the fancy lights were shining over all of them, it became difficult to tell if their hearts were in the job of protecting people and enacting justice, or if power bestowed on them by their badge was what mattered most.

  
“You gonna have more than just one of those?”

  
Turning from her amber glass, Alex found a familiar face in the form of Jimmy Deakins smiling at her. His face showed more wrinkles than it had the last time she’d seen him, but the same twinkle of humor glimmered there.

  
Alex couldn’t keep herself from grinning. “Captain,” she said in greeting. She lifted her glass to him.

  
Deakins chucked. “Not Captain anymore, Lieutenant,” he said. “Just a retired old man on a night out.” He gave her a warm smile. “It’s good to see you, Alex.”

  
“Likewise,” she said, returning the warmth. She gestured to the bar. “Want anything?”

  
He shook his head. “No, Martha already has our drinks at our table. But I saw you up here, and wanted to drop by and say hello.”

  
Nodding, Alex sipped her drink. “I’m glad you did,” she said. “I hate these things. Why can’t I just do my job without having to schmooze, you know?”

  
Deakins shrugged. “Part of the job,” he said. Leaning against the bar, he fell silent for a moment. His gaze drifted away from her as he grappled with whatever it was he was going to say. “How’re you doing today? I know…I know today is when --”

  
“Fine,” she said curtly. She didn’t want to even hear his name. “Just fine.”

  
He paused. “I won’t push it,” he said. “But I do need to tell you something. Since it’s been awhile since we’ve talked.”

  
Alex braced herself. She guessed she probably wouldn’t like what she was about to hear.

  
“You two were the best thing to happen to me in my career,” he said. “There were some rough days, hard cases. But I knew the city was safer with you in it. You guys? You had a connection that was once in a lifetime. I don’t know what happened -- that’s not my business. But I wanted you to know that. I hope you find each other again someday.”

  
 _Symbiosis_ , Bobby would have said, _it’s beneficial in nature. Between two people? It’s toxic, it brings the two together to the point they eat each other alive. It’s what makes partners so dangerous when they choose to kill together._

  
Swallowing past the iron lump in her throat, Alex nodded. “Okay,” she said. No other words would come to her.

  
“Does he...does he know? About --”

  
Alex cut him off with a glare. “No.”

  
Deakins smiled sadly, but sincerely. He placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Try to enjoy the night, Alex,” he said. Alex couldn’t stop herself from giving him a Seriously? look. It made him chuckle. “At least try to enjoy that bourbon.”

  
Then she was alone again, a glass of bourbon her only comfort and companion.

  
After getting a refill on her drink, as well as Derek’s glass of red wine, she took the drinks to their table. Derek was engaged in conversation with a few officers, some of whom Alex did recognize but couldn’t place them. She forced a smile and handed her boyfriend his wine.

  
“Thanks, babe,” he said, resting a hand on her waist.

  
She raised her glass in greeting to everyone. She prayed no one would try to talk to her. Her tongue was lead in her mouth to the point she was unsure if she could form words. Letting Derek do the talking seemed like the best option for getting through the night.

  
Alex sat through several speeches to honor NYPD officers for various good deeds or acts of heroism. The Commissioner finished off the awards and expressions of gratitude. She watched it all, feeling removed from the present. It was as if she was separated from her body, gazing down at herself from above. Through each of the speeches, through each observation of a medal being presented to the men on stage (because not a single woman was receiving such recognition tonight), she resisted the urge to roll her eyes. One of the medal recipients was known to frame suspects or plant evidence on them to create an illusion of guilt -- and no one gave a damn. The buddy boy system sent their fellow officers rallying around him to shield him from the consequences.

  
 _He only wears a size nine_ , a voice whispered in her ear. _Looks like he’s trying to compensate for it by framing people._

  
Alex’s heart seized at the wisp of his voice in her head. She knew it wasn’t there, that he wasn’t there, but the white hot ache that shot through her heart made it feel like he was actually there and whispering jokes to get them both through the unjust celebrations.

  
But when the band started up again and people started to file onto the dance floor. Men in tuxedos and women in dresses swayed to the easy jazz rhythm filling the ballroom. Alex barely registered any of it. All she wanted to do was melt into the imaginary conversation playing in her head.

  
“How does a dance sound?”

  
Derek’s voice yanked her back to her seat and an empty glass of bourbon. Alex tilted her head to the side, hoping she comprehended what was being said.

  
“Umm, sure,” she managed, rising to her feet. Blisters were growing larger on her heels, but she needed to move around. She needed to vanquish her imagined encounter with him. Taking Derek’s hand, she allowed him to lead her to the dance floor. They joined the crowd of others dancing. Derek spoke in hushed tones. Alex only heard half of what was being said. Her eyes flitted around the room, like she was searching for an exit to bolt through. She shouldn’t have come. Hearing everything in the speeches, the falsehoods and farces presented by political sycophants disguised as policemen -- all of it made her sick to her stomach.

  
And it was made infinitely worse by the anniversary of losing the person who meant most to her. Had meant most to her.

  
They danced. Alex needed to keep up the facade of the dutiful Lieutenant, the proud sister officer to the men honored. She played her part well. Expertly, in fact.

  
“May I, uh, cut in?”

  
Not caring they were in the middle of a dance floor, Alex froze. Derek nearly tipped them over with her unexpected stop. Gooseflesh rose on her skin. The hairs on the back of her neck shot up. She knew that voice. She heard it in her dreams, in her memories.

  
She heard it just moments ago.

  
Derek’s eyes widened at the sight of the speaker. “Whoa,” he said, whistling slowly. “You who I think you are?”

  
A nervous chuckle.

  
Alex finally turned. Towering above her and Derek, dressed in a crisp designer suit, stood Robert Goren. A thick mass of salt and pepper curls had grown out on his head. A neat beard now covered his face. The last time she had seen this much hair on his head and face, he had just returned to the city from visiting family after losing Frank, although then it had been unkempt and disheveled. Both his hands rested in his pockets.

  
The sight of him made Alex’s blood boil. She was sure her face flushed red. Or maybe it was drained of all color. She wasn’t sure. Thoughts swirled through her head. Emotions circled through her, as if on a racetrack within her gut. The car on that track crashed to a halt, freezing her feelings and obliterating her speech.

  
“Uh, sure man,” Derek said. “If Alex is okay with it?”

  
His questioning inflection and wide-eyed awe may have made Alex roll her eyes. But her attention was not on Derek. All she could do was stare at the ghost who had swept into the ballroom, the past clinging to him like a shield, and threatening to overwhelm her.

  
To her utter shock, Alex accepted Bobby’s offered hand. Her mouth remained clamped shut. The moment he took her hand in his, the moment he laid his other hand on her waist, she was thrown back in time.

  
_Her back pressed against the wall, legs hooked around his waist._

  
_Fire-kissed lips scorching their way up her collarbone to the sensitive skin at her pulse point._

  
_Clutching his hair to tilt his head back and gain access to his mouth._

  
They swayed to the smooth music, not saying anything at first. Alex’s face was set in a grimace, and her eyes refused to meet Bobby’s. The smell of his cologne filled her nose, sending a shiver up her spine. His hand burned through the chiffon on her gown. She briefly wondered if there would be a brand where his hand rested. She finally looked into his eyes. Those were the eyes she once looked into for hope for the victims they were striving to get justice for. She saw all those years they spent together.

  
Eyes she still saw every day.

  
_Calloused fingers gently unwrapping her from her clothes._

  
_Fumbling with his belt buckle._

  
_His lips burning a trail down her stomach until they find their destination between her thighs._

  
“Lieutenant,” he said. His voice was unsure, testing the waters.

  
Alex kept her mouth clamped shut in a hard line. She felt the eyes of so many people on them. Bobby’s reappearance drew attention to them both in a way she wasn’t sure she liked. The eyes followed them. She didn’t hear anything, but she could only imagine what gossip was being spread around the room like a wildfire.

  
_Is that who I think it is?_

  
_Where did he go? Did he have another breakdown?_

  
_I forgot, did we ever find out if they fucked? They must have fucked, right?_

  
“Uh,” he stammered. “I’m not really sure where to start.”

  
Typical Bobby. Not understanding that a sudden reappearance would affect her like being run down by a semi truck.

  
When her voice did return, it came out cold and tough as iron. “I should be kicking you out of here,” she hissed. “You’re a bastard. A class act bastard!”

  
Shame descended on his face. “I know.”

  
“What are you even doing here?” she snapped. “You hated these parties more than I do.”

  
He nodded. “I was back in the city. I got in touch with Deakins, and he suggested I come along.”

  
White hot anger spread through every inch of Alex. She made a mental note to kick Deakins’ ass the next time she came across him. He had known Bobby was here this whole time, had known when he approached her at the bar. This seemed like a detail he should have mentioned.

  
Seeing that anger glowing in her eyes, Bobby added, “It’s not his fault. I told him not to tell you.” It was as if he was looking directly into her mind. And just in case he could read her mind, the way they once were able to do, she thought of as many irate insults she could.

  
Alex said nothing. They swayed to the music. Every nerve tingled in her body. Fire broke out beneath her skin, coursing through her veins. She once accepted she would never see him again. She accepted that he was broken beyond repair and, like a coward, wouldn’t allow her in. Sure, she was still angry, but that didn’t mean she refused to accept what was right in front of her that whole time. Maybe this was nothing more than a hallucination, concocted by her brain to trick her into thinking Bobby was real.  
But the feel of his fingers in her hand that send small electrical shocks through her skin kept her tethered to reality. She took pride in her ability to train her face for whatever the occasion called for. Neutrality was one of her specialities. Not right now, though. Rage contorted her face, so tangible she could feel it. There was nothing she could do to hide it.

  
“So,” he began, “I’m going to start with an apology.”

  
Alex halted in the middle of their dance. Disbelief clawed its way through her. Her heart pounded in her chest. Before she could stop herself, her hand rose to slap him across the face. The people in the immediate vicinity stared. Mouths dropped open. But Alex didn’t care, nor did Bobby. He looked as if he expected this reaction. He almost appeared to want that treatment from her.

  
An _apology_? How could he dare bring that word up? What gave him the right?

  
“Take your apology, and shove it,” she spat.

  
Turning on her heel, Alex stormed from the ballroom. Most of the eyes in the room fell on her, but she continued her march from the room. Her vision blurred. She had no idea if it was from tears or from the spinning in her head. But she didn’t care. Hurriedly, she ran as fast as her feet would take her in the ridiculous heels she wore on her feet. Her legs spirited her away from the ballroom, up a set of stairs she wasn’t sure if she was allowed to climb, and into a deserted hallway. The lighting was dim, and she wondered if a scream would echo too loudly up here.

  
Alex tossed her shoes off. Blisters stung on her toes. The clips in her hair were too tight on her scalp. She yanked the clips from her head and threw them to the floor. Hair fell against her neck. A tsunami of emotion crashed over her. She no longer felt sadness. Rage was all that occupied her mind, all consuming and pure. Tears burned her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She closed her eyes in a desperate attempt to banish them.

  
_Gasps that filled the room._

  
_Sliding over top of him, their legs tangled like crossed wires._

  
_A smile spreading across her face as she murmurs the words that give her heart away._

  
_His response, the one that gives his heart to her._

  
“Eames.”

  
Alex gritted her teeth so hard she thought her jaw might crack from the pressure. She turned to face him, crossing her arms over her chest.

  
“What?” she managed. “What could you possibly want from me?”

  
Bobby stuck his hands in his pockets. Visible distraught masked his face. “Nothing. I know I have no right to ask you for anything.”

  
Alex’s legs wobbled.

  
“Every day I’ve thought about you. Every single day, since I left. I’ve been in Maine, working on...on a book. And I realized through it all that you were everywhere. Going through our case files, you were there. Every case. Every late night. Through our captains, our perps. Through Jo and Declan, through Nicole. I couldn’t get through a page without you coming into my head.”

  
“Gee, sorry to be such an inconvenience, Stephen King,” Alex groused. Every nerve tingled, almost painfully. She swallowed hard through her constricted throat.

  
He shook his head. “No, you were never an inconvenience. That’s the thing, Eames. I realized that even though I wasn’t -- that I wasn’t good enough for you, I would never be able to forget you. I would never be able to --” He halted as his voice shook. “I wouldn’t be able to rest until I told you how wrong I was for everything.”

_Waking up in the middle of the night, and kissing his face until he, too, wakes._

  
_Him rolling her under him._

  
_Her legs wrapping around his waist as he slides into her for the second time that night._

_The pain of waking up to find him missing from her bed, to going into work to find his desk empty and a letter of resignation, struck her once more. Her heart clenched in her chest. Memories continued to shoot through her brain, unwelcome and unstoppable._

  
Before she knew what was happening, he crossed the space between them and took her trembling hands. She swore his touch awoke a fire in her that had not burned inside her in awhile. It was so foreign to her now that she couldn’t figure out what it meant.

  
“I know I don’t have any right to ask you for forgiveness,” he said. “I know I messed up. But I...I can’t live without you. And I needed you to hear it.”

  
Alex closed her eyes. She tried to banish the feeling of being in his arms, of his hands gripping her hips as she sat atop him. She needed air. She needed to forget how she once felt. Yanking her hands from his grasp, she stormed over to the window. She gulped down whatever air she could.

  
“You’re right,” she croaked. “You have no right, none! You were gone for years -- and now, you just...just show up! You’ve lost your chance. Any chance you had ran out the door when you did.”

  
Coming to stand beside her, Bobby tested her limits. He knew he would be risking his skin, but he reached out and cupped her cheek in his hand. She resisted the urge to lean into her hand; he always had this effect on her, one she was never very good at resisting. His dark eyes were full of hope, despite the hopelessness of the situation.

  
“I love you,” he murmured, pushing a tendril of hair from her face. “I’ve always known it, even when I tried to fight it. But this...this damage in me, this, uh, darkness. I couldn’t let it touch you. You deserve better than a damaged old man. With me gone, you could get to where you deserved to be in the force. I left to save you from me.”

  
She choked on her voice before sputtering, “Save me? Save me!” She thrust him away from her. “I have never needed a single person to save me, Robert Goren. Least of all you!”

  
He nodded. “You’re absolutely right. And I would never want to take that from you. Your strength.”

  
“Enough of the -- the flattery! You’re making me sick. Quit your groveling. It doesn’t help your case. It changes nothing.”

  
“Tell me what you want from me, and I’ll give it to you,” he said. “I’ll do anything you tell me. To, uh, atone for what I did.”

  
Alex stared at him, hoping her fury blazed from her eyes. She needed him to feel it. To see it. He needed to see it. Tears flooded her eyes. This time, it is her who steps towards him. She never broke eye contact with him. Her eyes ended up moving, but only to his lips. Those lips that once traced every inch of her skin. The lips she still felt imprinted on her body like scar tissue.

  
 _Get ahold of yourself, Eames_! she screamed to herself within her mind.

  
Unable to stop to stop the onslaught of emotion, she balled her hands into tight fists and beat them against his chest. And Bobby accepted all of it. He didn’t fight it. He didn’t try to stop it. He accepted it because he wanted to accept it.  
When Alex’s arms grew leaden, she had lost track of how many times she had hit him. Gravity threatened to pull her to the floor. She swallowed hard, ending her assault.

  
“Do you have any idea what you did to me?” she whispered.

  
Bobby nodded. “I should never have done it.” Taking both her lithe hands in his, he kissed them gently.

  
“What are you doing here, Bobby?” she asked, too tired to fight anymore. She could no longer sustain the furious high her adrenaline had fueled when she fled the ballroom.

  
“There is so much I need to tell you,” he said. “It’s things I should have told you a long time ago. Things like, I’m a coward. How I would spend the rest of my life with you, if I hadn’t fucked everything up.”

  
Alex listened as his words flowed into her bloodstream like a virus. She wanted to collapse. Bobby and she stared at one another. His eyes shimmered silver. Using one of his thumbs, he wiped a trail of tears from her cheek. She had not even realized she had begun to cry.

  
Extracting herself from Bobby’s grasp, Alex shook her head. “I can’t be here right now,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself. She willed her tears to dry from her eyes and schooled her face to a blank canvas. This time, it stuck. She was Alex Eames, not some delicate flower that would get crushed by a man stomping back into her life.

  
Even if that man was one whose very presence could shift the earth on its axis for her.

  
Leaning down to pick up her shoes and discarded hair clips, she moved around him to head back down the stairs. She couldn’t be around him right now, and she certainly couldn’t be in this building.

  
There was only one place she could be right now.

  
When she reached the stairwell, Bobby called out, “Goodbye, Alex.”

  
Holding her head high, Alex refused to turn to look at him. His goodbye rang in her ears. There was an air of finality to his farewell as if he believed this was the end. The true end. Would there ever be an end to the two of them? As frayed as it was, there was a tether between them, a bond that connected their hearts. Nothing had severed it yet, not even the years of separation.

  
And there would always be one thing that kept them together, no matter how far apart they grew.

  
As Alex exited the building, the sounds of the city overwhelmed her. She wiped her eyes and sucked in deep gulps of air. Her shoes dangled from her fingers. Cool air brushed against her hot cheeks. Without caring that she was leaving her date behind, she hailed a cab. Leaning back against the seat, praying her heart would slow, she directed the driver where to go.

  
XXXXX

  
_I didn’t even cry_   
_Because pieces of me had already died_

  
XXXXX

  
“Alex?”

  
Despite the expensive fee, Alex had taken her cab all the way to her father’s home. Johnny Eames allowed her inside after her insistent knocking on the door.

  
Her father followed her in, checking his watch. “It’s only ten thirty, aren’t you still supposed to be at the ball?” He frowned. “And didn’t Derek drive you both?”

  
Alex ignored her father’s questions as they strode into his living room. “What time did she go to bed?” she asked, dropping the ridiculous shoes onto the couch. Her voice cracked.

  
“Umm, eight thirty?” he said. Johnny came to stand in front of his daughter, putting both hands on her shoulder. Concern fell on his face. “Honey, what’s wrong? Why -- have you been crying? What happened?”

  
She shook her head. “Later, Dad,” she murmured. “I just...I just need to go to bed. We can talk in the morning.”

  
Without waiting for her father to say anything more, Alex climbed the stairs to her childhood room. Quiet as she could, she pushed the door open. Soft light glowed from the bedside table. Despite the agony she found herself experiencing, Alex’s heart warmed. On her bed, curled up beneath a quilt and sleeping soundly, was a little girl. Her honey blonde hair was in two pigtails, and her chest rose and fell in the breathing of sleep.

  
After discarding her dress and washing up for the evening, Alex padded across the floor to the bed. Careful to not disturb the sleeping child, she eased herself under the quilt and placed a kiss on the little girl’s head. A soft yawn sounded from her mouth, followed by a sleepy, “Mama?” The little girl rubbed her eyes with clumsy fingers and blinked up at Alex. She was an exact copy of her mother in every way but one. Her eyes were a deep dark brown. Alex’s heart clenched.

  
“Shh,” Alex murmured as her baby’s eyes drooped again. “Go back to sleep, Talia.” When she was confident the little girl was sound asleep again, she leaned over her daughter to turn off the light.

  
In the dark, Alex allowed her burning eyes to close. Bobby’s face swam in her mind, his dark eyes staring into hers as he spoke the words over and over: _I love you_.

Rubbing small circles on her daughter’s back, her throat bobbed. She wouldn’t cry. Not anymore. She couldn’t.

  
But after a few moments of listening to her daughter’s steady breathing, Alex could no longer keep the pain at bay. Sobs escaped her throat and did not stop until she fell into a fitful sleep.

  
XXXXX

  
_I’ve got to say goodbye_   
_To the pieces of me that have already died_


	2. How Do Broken Hearts Get Strong

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> None of these characters (except for Talia) are my creation. They’ve just taken up some space in my head.

_You can’t lie_

_Words stay once said_

_Hard to live, so I play dead_

\- Ingrid Michaelson, “Drink You Gone”

XXXXX

The smell of bacon wafted into Alex’s room in the morning, rousing her from sleep. Talia was no longer with her, but based on the smell of breakfast coming up from the kitchen, Alex knew there was no reason to worry. Talia adored being with her grandfather in the kitchen.

Rubbing her eyes, Alex sat up. There was no point changing out of her pajamas. It was a Saturday; she had nowhere to be. When she glanced at her phone, she found several texts and missed calls from Derek. She rolled her eyes, ignoring all of them.

Downstairs, the smell of food sent Alex’s mouth watering. When she entered the kitchen, she found her father and daughter standing at the stove. A stack of pancakes sat next to the stove. Johnny stood beside his granddaughter, who perched on a stepstool beside him. Bacon crackled in the pan in front of them.

“Flip it, like the cakes!” Talia said, grinning and clapping her hands together. Alex laughed, heading toward the coffee pot. Talia twisted her head to find her mother. An even more delighted grin spread over her face. That infectious smile Talia wore was so familiar to Alex sometimes that it hurt.

Talia was practically a carbon copy of Alex. They had the same strawberry blonde hair, the same delicate nose, the same facial structure. Personality-wise, they could not have been more different. She was the exact same as her father in the early years Alex knew him. They shared the same wit and charm, the cheeky smugness when they were right and everyone else was wrong. Both had those twinkling brown eyes.

“Mama!” Immediately forgetting that she was watching Johnny cook, the little girl jumped down and ran into her mother’s arms.

Alex lifted Talia up and placed a kiss on her cheek. “Good morning, baby girl,” she said, nuzzling her daughter’s nose. “You helping your grandpa make us some breakfast?”

Talia nodded enthusiastically. “Mm hmm,” she said, using her small fingers to play with the ends of Alex’s hair. “Grandpa’s letting me help!”

Setting Talia back on her feet, Alex filled a mug of coffee and nodded to her father. “Thanks for letting us spend the night again, Dad,” she said, raising her mug to her lips.

Johnny turned off the stove and smiled. “Anytime, sweetie,” he said. Glancing down at Talia, he winked. “Me and this little girl had a good time watching...what was it we watched?”

“ _Swan Princess_ , Grandpa!” Talia said in a “well duh” voice.

Alex nodded, lips tilting upward in the corners. “Yeah, Grandpa,” she teased, pouring her father a mug of coffee and joining Talia at the table. She leaned down and planted a kiss on the top of Talia’s blonde head. “Sweetie, why don’t you go wash your hands, and I’ll get you some juice.”

Talia nodded and bounded off to the bathroom, leaving Alex and Johnny in the kitchen to get the table set. Hearing her father’s heavy sigh, she knew she was about to get an interrogation. She avoided looking at him while she took the plate of pancakes and set it on the table.

“You gonna tell me what happened last night?”

Alex’s lips pinched. Even in the light of day, even knowing she would be required to tell Johnny what had happened, she wasn’t fully prepared for what she had to divulge.

“Bobby came back,” she murmured, sinking into a chair.

Johnny was silent. “What happened?” he asked after a long stretch.

She huffed. “I slapped him,” she said. “In the middle of the dance floor. Then he told me a whole thing about how he’s writing a book, and all he could think about was me. So he showed up down here, and Jimmy Deakins _knew_. Mike probably knew, too.” She sipped her coffee, staring straight ahead. “Can you believe that?”

“I believe Bobby,” Johnny said beside his daughter. He laid a hand on her arm.

Alex looked sideways, narrowing her eyes at her father. She never understood why her father could be so calm and silent when it came to Bobby. He had lost it when any of her boyfriends broke up with her in high school, offering to help her get revenge as a joke to try and cheer her up. To this day, whenever he passed Nick Farrell at the bodega down the street, he still glared at him for standing Alex up in the ninth grade for the homecoming dance.

But not Bobby.

Johnny was one of the few people who knew who Talia’s father was. Sure, everyone in the NYPD, both veterans of the force and green rookies, suspected; how could they not when they spent the last decade and a half wondering if there was something going on between Major Case’s most notorious duo. But only a handful _knew_. Alex’s father, Liz, their brother. Captain Deakins. Mike Logan. Had Danny Ross still been alive, Alex would have told him. Her siblings, especially Liz, despised Bobby for what he’d left in his wake when he disappeared. But her father? He grew quiet at the mere mention of Bobby.

“Yeah?” she said. “Why is that?”

“I’ve always known he loved you, sweetheart. That was never a secret.”

Alex rolled her eyes back so far she thought they’d roll back in the back of her head. “He left me,” she whispered, stomach rolling. “Not a word, not a forwarding address. Captain Hannah was the one who told me he’d left, and he didn’t even get a warning. Just a letter, a badge, and a gun on his desk.”

“Oh, don’t mistake me, Alex, I’d kick his ass in an instant if I ever saw him again,” Johnny said. “He hurt my baby, I’ll never forgive him for that. At the same time, I know what he’s dealt with. That instability, that being afraid of what he could do to someone he loves? I struggled with that everyday when I was on the force. And eventually I sank so low your mother left me. We kept you and your siblings from seeing it. But it was there.” He laughed darkly. “Why do you think I took up drinking more when you were a teenager?”

Alex grasped her father’s hand and gave it a squeeze. Before she could say anything more, though, Talia came bounding back into the room and leapt onto Alex’s lap.

“Oof!” Alex laughed, letting Talia throw her arms around her neck. “Ready for some food?”

As they settled in for breakfast, Alex watched Talia out of the corner of her eye. Her mannerisms, just like her personality, came from Bobby. Alex had no idea how a child inherited their parents’ traits, but Bobby’s quirks and facial expressions were in Talia. The tilt of her head when her curiosity was peaked. Her desire to get her hands into everything. The constant movement of her arms. She even paced on occasion.

Bobby thought last night was goodbye, but now that he was back...well, Alex couldn’t imagine not telling him. His absence and no trace of where he was had made things easier. But she wasn’t petty enough to hide something of this magnitude. Talia would grow up one day and wonder who her father was. If anything, Alex feared the prospect of future Talia’s wrath more than she feared the prospect of Bobby reappearing.

She could only hope he wouldn’t disappear again.

XXXXX

_Like a sinking ship while the band plays on_

_When I dream you’re there, I can’t even sleep you gone_

_How do broken hearts get strong?_

_Tell me, how do broken hearts get strong?_

XXXXX

“Lieutenant Eames!” Mike Logan said in greeting the moment he answered the phone. “How’re you doing this --”

With a voice sharp enough to slice bone, Alex interrupted him. “Where is he staying?” Logan remained quiet so long Alex wondered if he had abandoned his phone and run off. “Mike, so help me God if you don’t tell me where Goren is staying…”

Logan said, “Listen, Alex...I’m sorry I didn’t give you any warning. He asked --”

“Yeah, yeah,” she grumbled, “he asked you not to. That’s not what I’m worried about.”

“If you’re wondering if I told him about Talia, the answer is no,” Logan said quickly. “I wouldn’t break your trust like that.”

Alex wondered if Logan understood the irony in his words about trust at that moment.

“Look, I’m over you and Deakins keeping me in the dark. That’s not my problem. My problem is that now I know where he is, I’ve got a few things to discuss with him.”

 _Unless he’s already disappeared again_ , she added silently.

“You taking --”

“Yeah, Logan , I thought I’d just bring the daughter he didn’t know he has by for a quick chat,” she said. “Let him see her lean her head over, and give him a big ol’ heart attack.”

Alex could imagine Logan holding his hands up in surrender. “Alright, I get it,” he said. “Need a babysitter?”

She huffed. “No, my dad is going to watch her.”

Logan paused for a moment. “I really am sorry, Alex,” he said. “I knew he was going to try to reach out to you. I had no idea he’d just spring it on you, though.”

 _Of course he sprang it on me, he’s always had a flair for the dramatic,_ Alex thought, bitter.

Instead, she sighed. “Just tell me where I can find him.”

XXXXX

_I still feel your hand in mine_

_Think I need much more than time_

XXXXX

After forcing Logan to tell her where Bobby was staying, Alex made her way to the Midtown hotel he was at. Logan had given her the room number and explained how Bobby would only be in town for another few days.

She knocked several times, waiting patiently. The fury from the previous night was assuaged enough she could stand without shaking. Emotions would no longer cloud her judgment. The pragmatic and analytical investigator returned. The objective lieutenant who commanded the respect of everyone she came across was standing in this doorway.

Behind the door, Alex could hear the heavy footfalls that signaled his approach. The lock slid open to reveal Bobby’s huge form, dressed casually, with a pair of reading glasses on his face and a pen behind his ear. To say his face fell into shock would have been an understatement.

He cleared his throat. “Eames?” he asked. “What, ah...what are you doing here?” His hands twisted nervously in front of him.

Alex pursed her lips. “We need to talk.”

Babbling, Bobby shifted to the side to let her in. “There’s coffee on the pot. Surprisingly good. If you want a cup.”

Alex acknowledged the offer with a nod. As he set to work making her a cup -- of course he remembered she took it with two creams, no sugar -- she looked around the room. Set up at the desk was his laptop and notes. She’d clearly interrupted his working. It was only fair, she thought with irritation. She interrupted his writing just as he had interrupted her life.

“Here,” he murmured. His voice was quiet. He continued to avert his eyes.

She took the coffee and proceeded to blow on it. Silent, she tried to remind herself why she was here. It was for Talia. _All_ of it was for Talia. And personal feelings aside, Talia deserved to know who her father was, and to know him.

Setting the coffee down, untouched, Alex crossed her arms over her chest. “We can’t say goodbye the way you wanted to last night.” She sighed, trying to let the words flow. They wouldn’t come out the way she imagined they would. Bobby kept his eyes downward, hands moving to his pockets. Irritated, Alex snapped her fingers. “Hey. Look at me. We’ve got to have a serious conversation, and you need to look me in the damn eye while we have it.”

Obediently, he looked into her eyes. His wounded expression turned her voice to ice. “Five years ago, when you left, you didn’t leave me a forwarding address. Your phone was disconnected. You _disappeared_. So, what I’m about to tell you? You have no right to get angry.”

Bobby trained his face to be blank, but she could see in his eyes a combination of the curiosity and panic. He needed to know what she was about to say, that much she could read. That desire to know itched inside him.

“After we...after what _happened_ between us, I found out I was pregnant.” This time, it was Alex who looked away. She was quickly starting to realize this was not going to be easy. Her pragmatism began to falter. Emotion spider-crawled its way into her throat. “I had her in 2013. Her birthday is March 6.” Though she spoke few words, breathing became difficult, and she needed to stop.

Then the words restarted with fury and fell from her mouth without any filter. “She’s four now. She looks exactly like me. Sometimes she asks about a dad, but I don’t know what to tell her. And she’s smart...she’s so, so smart.” Biting the inside of her cheek, she struggled to contain herself. She rambled, and when she rambled she was liable to say something she would regret. Uncertainty was never a huge problem for her, but after Talia’s birth, sometimes that feeling was all she felt. She saw it as an unwelcome side effect of motherhood.

Bobby took the opportunity during Alex’s silence to speak. His voice was still, completely devoid of emotion. She didn’t see his face, but she could easily picture what it looked like. It was the look he had whenever he had received a call about his mother, the anticipatory look that braced him for the worst possible news.

“Where, uh, where is she?” he asked, voice breaking at the last word.

Alex finally turned to look at him. His face was drained of all color, his eyes wide in disbelief.

“My dad has her,” she replied. “There was some National Geographic thing about tigers she wanted to watch. And I needed to do this myself.”

Emotions zipped across Bobby’s face. Fear. Anger. Confusion.

Running his hands through his hair, Bobby scratched the top of his head and blinked several times.

“I...I…” he started. “I don’t know what, uh, where…” His voice trailed off, and he collapsed into his desk chair. “This…” Leaning his elbows on his knees, he rubbed his face. When he cleared his throat, he finally croaked out a clear sentence. “ _She_...uh, what’s her name?”

“Talia.”

“Talia…” Bobby leaned back in the chair, finding Alex’s eyes.

Alex was unsure of what to make of this reaction. Bobby’s moods had never been predictable. She certainly hadn’t expected an overjoyed reaction. The two of them were older than typical parents. She was just shy of forty years old when she had Talia. She had been more inclined to imagine anger on an epic scale. But Bobby had always blamed himself for everything. And based on his reaction so far, she knew she was correct in thinking the guilt had already started chipping away at his insides. But he had heard her initial warning, and followed her instructions. After all, he was the one who fell off the face of the earth.

But this odd combination of confusion and apprehension was more unexpected than usual.

“She has your eyes,” Alex said, clenching and unclenching her hands. “And, um, the head tilt.” She laughed nervously. “She’s a lot like you, actually. Mannerisms. And like I said, she’s smart...too smart, probably.”

Bobby stared at her. “What made you come here to tell me?” he asked. “You could have kept this from me for the rest of your life, for _her_ life. And after what I did? You’d have been well within your rights to do that.”

Alex narrowed her eyes. “I’m telling her because Talia deserves to know who you are. She deserves the truth, not some lie I would have made up to keep her from you. And at the end of the day, I know I wouldn’t ever do something like what you did to me to you.”

She didn’t say the words to wound; all she did was state a fact.

Bobby saw that.

“May I see her?” he asked.

Like many of the moments in this meeting, Alex stared at him. Some color returned to his cheeks, but the curiosity remained. Curiosity melted into desperation, a desire to know the child he only discovered moments ago. It was all that mattered to him.

This was it. There was no turning back. They were not partners anymore, but he was about to be back in her life for good. Something inside her sparked, but nothing came from it except a low hum under her skin. Somehow, this moment seemed far too anticlimactic. But if she got to skip the melodrama, she was fine.

Alex nodded once. “Get your stuff.”

Bobby leapt to his feet in one bound, almost tripping over himself as he grabbed his wallet and room key. “Ready,” he said.

With a roll of her eyes, Alex headed for the door. “Oh, and don’t be surprised if my dad decides to clock you.”

XXXXX

_I can’t smoke you out_

_I can’t eat away, the way you ate my heart_

XXXXX

“Dad?” Alex called as she led Bobby into her father’s house. “I’m back.”

“In the living room.”

Gesturing for Bobby to follow her, Alex led him around the corner. On the TV, a tiger roaming through a lush jungle filled the screen. Talia had her back turned to them, thoroughly engrossed in the show. Johnny, on the other hand, sat in his armchair, hands folded in front of him and a stern glare painted on his face. That glare immediately found Bobby.

“Mr. Eames,” Bobby said in greeting. He hardly looked at Johnny. Instead, he watched the little girl, whose face he still had not seen, as she watched TV.

“Bobby.” Johnny’s voice was steel. “Been awhile.”

Alex knelt on the floor beside Talia. She could feel Bobby’s eyes following her. Moving a lock of hair from Talia’s face, Alex said, “Sweetie, we’re going to turn this off now. Okay? There’s someone you’ve got to meet.”

Talia pouted, despite her eyes never leaving the screen. “Aww, the tigers…”

Patting the stuffed animal in Talia’s grasp, Alex said, “You’ve got one right here.” She held out her hand for Talia to take. “Now, come on. You have someone to meet.” Though her smile was steady, the nerves in her belly crackled and sent tingles through her blood. She felt Bobby’s eyes on them. His anxiety radiated through the room. His nerves hit Alex in waves, but she had always been able to sense when he was off in some way. If Talia noticed it, she didn’t let them know.

With a toothy grin, Talia took Alex’s hand. Her hand was warm in Alex’s, soothing some of her worry. Talia’s warm eyes glowed at her mother. They rose to their feet so Alex could lead them to stand in front of Bobby. It was surreal to see Talia standing before Bobby, him towering over her, while Talia’s head tilted all the way back to stare upward.

“Talia, this is --” Alex started to say.

“Are you Bobby?” Talia interrupted. When she met her mother’s eyes, she clutched her stuffed tiger and looked at the floor, bashful. “You were sad, Mama. About Bobby.” She looked at Bobby, expecting an answer. “At breakfast. Mama and Grandpa thought I was still washing my hands.” A mischievous smile spread over her face. “But I heard.”

Bobby gulped, nervous. He glanced at Alex briefly. Confusion was in his eyes. “She’s ahead with speech -- way ahead, actually,” Alex explained. “Not sure why.”

 _Maybe because her father is a genius?_ Alex added to herself.

Talia took a bold step forward and stuck out her hand. “My name is Talia,” she said. “Nice to meetcha.”

With his height, Bobby was forced to lean down quite a ways to take her hand and shake it. Alex’s throat tightened, but otherwise she remained still and focused on Talia and Bobby.

“It’s, uh, it’s nice to meet you,” he said. “Yeah, I’m Bobby.” Clearing his throat, he pointed to the stuffed animal with one hand, and scratched the back of his head. “You, um, you like tigers?”

Nodding, Talia held out her tiger for him to take. “This is Sheba. She’s my favorite toy.”

As the little girl babbled with Bobby about tigers, Alex leaned down to kiss the top of Talia’s head. “I’m going to grab us all some coffee. I’ll bring you some juice, sweetie.” Talia ignored her to continue talking about tigers. Alex’s lips quirked at the corners as she motioned to Johnny to come help her. Her father rose to his feet, never taking his eyes off Bobby.

“What did he say when you told him?” Johnny asked in a low voice when they made it to the kitchen. They took three mugs from the cupboards and a cup for Talia’s juice. “No hemming and hawing? I noticed he’s continuing to use that stammer of his that he busts out when he’s nervous.”

Alex rolled her eyes. “Dad, don’t start,” she hissed. “Weren’t you the one who said you understood him loving me?”

“Yeah, but I also said I would sock him if I saw him again.”

As he poured coffee into the mugs, Alex couldn’t help but smirk. “Dad, you’re not going to sock anyone. You’d break your wrist. And that’s if you could even reach his jaw.”

Johnny harrumphed. He poked his head around Alex to look in on Bobby and Talia. Talia had forced them to sit down on the floor and was giving him what could very well have been a full academic lecture. Alex leaned against the counter and watched. Bobby was thoroughly engrossed in the conversation, adding a few things that Talia nodded along with.

“What’s he want?” Johnny demanded.

“I didn’t ask,” she said.

“You gonna ask him for child support?” her father returned. “If anything, you should get it for him being a deadbeat.”

Alex rolled her eyes. “Don’t think he qualifies for that description, considering he didn’t know about her until forty five minutes ago.”

“I can think of a few choice descriptions he _does_ qualify for,” Johnny grumbled. “He better not hurt my granddaughter, that’s all I’m saying.”

She shook her head. “It’s not like I’ve told her who he is,” she muttered. “She’s not formed an emotional attachment to him. If he chooses to leave after all this, Talia and I will be just fine.” Johnny looked skeptical, and as he opened his mouth to add more, Alex snatched a mug and Talia’s juice. She returned to the living room. “Here’s your juice, sweetie.”

“Thanks, Mama,” she said. “I’m telling Bobby everything I know about tigers. He’s telling me about _were-tigers_!” A broad grin stretched across her face before she took a gulp of apple juice. Alex smiled and sat on the couch.

Johnny came in and handed Bobby a cup of coffee before returning to his armchair.

“Yeah, were-tigers are myth from India,” Bobby said, smiling.

Talia clapped in delight. “ _I_ want to be a tiger!”

That tightening returned to Alex’s throat. She hid her lips behind the coffee mug, and lowered her eyes. Had someone told her this weekend would go this way, that Bobby would suddenly reappear, and she would be introducing Talia to him, she would have laughed in their face. Having it in front of her very eyes made her want to find the nearest mirror to laugh at herself.

She should have known this might happen. All of the things she had experienced -- Vice, the psychopaths she’d caught in Major Case, being kidnapped, falling into bed with her partner, getting subsequently knocked up by that partner -- should have prepared her for Bobby’s return.

A buzzing broke out in Alex’s pocket. She pulled it out. Derek’s name popped up on the caller ID. Rolling her eyes, she held up the phone to Johnny to avoid disturbing Bobby and Talia’s animated conversation. “I’ve got to take this,” she muttered, barely audible.

She moved outside onto the porch. “Hello?” 

Derek breathed a massive sigh of relief. “Oh my God! Alex! Alex, where have you been? Why haven’t you answered your phone? I’ve left you six messages!”

Alex held the phone away from her ear at the volume and speed of his voice. “Derek, slow down,” she said, trying to keep the irritated bite from her voice. The cuteness of Derek she found charming the previous night was now an annoyance. “I’m fine.”

“What happened to you last night? You just disappeared. I saw you leave the ballroom, then you disappeared. Someone said you slapped that guy, Goren? Did he hurt you?”

She remained quiet for a moment, not sure how to respond to his recounting of the night before.

“You had me worried sick, babe,” he said. “Where are you, is everything okay? Is Talia okay?”

“Yes, everything is fine,” she lied. “I just...I just wasn’t feeling well. I’m at my dad’s. Listen, I’ll call you back later. I really need to go.”

Derek sputtered, “But, wait! What’s --”

Unfazed, Alex hung up and rubbed her temples. There were too many things happening in her head right now, all of them pieces of a puzzle that she was trying to jam together but the pieces were too large, and she was fumbling them with clumsy fingers. She pocketed her phone and leaned back against the door. All around her the air felt stifling, even with a gentle breeze blowing through her hair. That breeze in her hair…

_Fingers stroking through her scalp._

_Spreading her legs to allow him access._

_Lifting her hips to meet his._

Alex’s heart beat even faster in her chest.

After crying herself to sleep last night, this morning and early afternoon Alex found that all she felt was confusion. The sorrow and the rage and the hurt from the past five years had melted together until they became a muddled pool of apprehension and exhaustion. The tears from the night before were the first she’d cried since Talia was an infant. Just as she’d done with Joe, every part of her that had to do with Bobby was thrown into a box where she could lock it away. In typical Bobby fashion, he’d stormed in, smashed the lock, and thrown the box back open.

Alex returned inside and to the living room. Talia remained delighted that she had someone to talk at. She now held a book out, demanding Bobby pay attention to her lecture on tigers. Upon seeing her mother reenter the room, Talia’s eyes lit up. With a tilt of her head, she asked, “Mama, can Bobby please be my friend? He’s cool.”

Bobby’s eyes grew wide at the angle of Talia’s head. He swallowed hard. When he met Alex’s eyes, the only thing she could do was shrug and give him an _I told you so_ look.

“I don’t know, does Bobby _want_ to be your friend?” Alex said, saying one set of words with her mouth. But as her eyes probed Bobby’s, she knew he would see the real question.

Giving Alex an almost imperceptible nod, Bobby returned his attention to Talia. “I would love to be your friend, Talia,” he said.

XXXXX

_When I dream you’re there, I can’t sleep you gone_

_How do broken hearts get strong?_

_Tell me, how do broken hearts get strong?_


	3. I Will Grow My Own Trees

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the next chapter. This thing wasn't supposed to be very long, but somehow it's ended up being multiple chapters. Not entirely sure why, but at this point, I'm just along for the ride with whatever my brain comes up with.
> 
> As with the other chapters, Ingrid Michaelson continues to be my soundtrack.
> 
> Thank you very much for reading, reviewing, and clicking!

_You call me a mountain_

_And I call you the sea_

_I'll stand tall and certain_

_And watch you swallow me_

\- Ingrid Michaelson, "Mountain and the Sea"

XXXXX

When Alex returned from Talia's room after putting her to bed, Bobby was standing in front of the bookshelves. He stared at the books, the pictures, the trinkets. He was stuck on one photo in particular.

"Which are you looking at?" she asked, sitting on the couch. She set a box she had brought from the hall on the coffee table in front of her.

Bobby pulled the frame off the shelf and held it up. "Baby picture," he said, swallowing hard. It was one of Alex holding Talia close, her eyes glued to the infant. It was in the hospital, one her sister had taken right after the family was allowed in to see her.

Alex nodded. She patted the couch and said, "C'mon. I have something to show you. Well, _things_ , I guess."

She wasn't sure why she'd invited Bobby to come back to her apartment. Her initial thought was _Old habits die hard_. She once trusted this man more than anyone in the world. This apartment knew his feet well. Hell, the couch they sat on knew him well. It was one of the possible locations in this apartment Talia had been conceived, for Christ's sake.

But the real reason he was there was Talia. The girl had no idea the man she deemed her new friend was actually her father, but she was already very attached to him. Talia was certainly more entertained by Bobby than she was by Derek. For that, Alex was grateful. She didn't know what she would have done if she needed to do as much talking with Bobby around as she did with Derek. But being at Johnny's all afternoon, Alex was happy to just facilitate whatever shenanigans Talia wanted to get them into. The shenanigans of the day had involved Talia demanding Bobby help construct a city out of Legos. Johnny spent his day glaring at Bobby, while Alex spent her day making sure Johnny didn't "accidentally" poison Bobby.

But now, home and Talia sound asleep, clutching her stuffed tiger down the hall, Alex had no choice but to talk to Bobby.

Swallowing hard, Bobby sat down beside her. He made sure to maintain enough distance that she didn't feel smothered.

_Always so perceptive,_ she thought, equally amused and bitter.

"What's all this?" he asked as she opened the box and pulled a stack of photos out. The photos were tied together with a purple ribbon.

She handed them to Bobby. "These were from her first birthday," she mumbled, untying the ribbon. The one on top of the pile was Alex cuddled up with a grinning Talia in front of a unicorn birthday cake.

He chuckled. "This is great."

Alex watched as he flipped through the stack. His eyes twinkled with amusement at each one. Unable to take the silence while he looked through the box, she got up to head to the kitchen. She filled two tumblers with the emergency bottle of scotch she had for occasions like this. Not that she had much occasion to use it.

Alex blinked as she set the bottle down on the counter.

_Being lifted onto the kitchen counter._

_Tightening her arms around his neck._

_Their teeth clicking together as his hand slid up her shirt._

She took a deep breath. Her heart thundered in her chest. All day she had pushed her feelings down as deep as they could possibly go. As she stood in her kitchen, the hurt and the anger came flooding back in a monsoon. She stared at the tiles of her kitchen floor. No tears came - she'd cried herself out the night before - but the pain coursing through her was a white hot knife digging into her heart. Each breath she took twisted the knife even deeper. This was the man who'd left her, who'd abandoned her after she bared her soul to him. She rolled her eyes at herself for the melodrama.

Melodramatic or not, it was how she felt for giving it all to Bobby.

Scotch in hand, she returned to the living room and offered one to him. He gratefully accepted, took a sip, and returned his attention to digging through the box.

"That's her birth certificate," Alex murmured, pointing to what Bobby produced from the box. She took a sip of her drink, letting the fire roll down her throat and warm her belly. Bobby's eyes scanned the document. Something made him pause. He rubbed his chin, looking hesitant. She arched a brow at him. "What?"

"Uh, you...you, uh, have me listed as the father," he said, voice quiet. "You hyphenated her name." He held up the paper from the hospital, listing their names. He tapped the spot with his full name printed.

She shrugged. "I told you, she was never going to _not_ know who you were. She just wouldn't have met you if you hadn't come back." She cleared her throat. "Guess it's a good thing you reappeared."

Gently laying the birth certificate on the coffee table, he rubbed his face. Alex took the moment to observe him. Gray streaked his hair and beard. The beard in general. In the past it'd been a sign he was stressed, not sleeping. Now, with it neatly trimmed, Alex found herself liking it. Creases were embedded at the corner of his eyes. Even hunched over, his broad frame took up half her couch. Her throat dried as she watched him wring his hands together.

"I'm so sorry, Eames," he rasped. "I'm so, so sorry."

Alex remained quiet. She wasn't in the mood to rehash her pain. Because there had been pain. A lot of it. She remembered watching her growing belly, the same as watching it grow with her nephew, but not. The first kicks. The images of the sonograms. She hadn't had anyone for it.

Once, when she was pregnant with her nephew, and Bobby was partnered with Bishop, he'd barricaded himself in the conference room until closing time. Bishop, exasperated with him, had gone home for the night, knowing she was not welcome in his late night study session. Alex had been getting ready to leave for the evening, too. Her back was sore from the sheer amount of kicking the kid was dealing her way, and all she wanted was to take a scalding shower. One glance through the window of the conference room at her partner, eyes glued to a corkboard of a map of dumpsites in Queens and crime scene photos, stopped her.

Even on the other side of the glass, Alex had seen the gears and screws in Bobby's head creaking. Alex could sympathize with Bishop; she knew how it felt to be pushed out of his process. Unlike Bishop, Alex also knew how to pick the locks to get herself in.

So she had approached him, the partner who had sunk even further into himself since she was desked. He barely acknowledged her some days, something she knew was because he didn't know how to process her being within reach, and yet not. Working with Bishop was making him irritable, and that irritability was bleeding over to Alex in some moments.

Entering the room, she went to stand beside him. She stared at the board with him. "You think you'll get any sleep tonight?" she asked.

Bobby barely acknowledged her, but he did glance her way. "Mmm," he hummed.

"You gonna be an ass to me the rest of the time you're working with Bishop?"

He didn't answer.

Someone without experience in Bobby Goren might have been hurt by his dismissal. She knew better. Her back continued to ache in the silence, the insistent kicking making her groan inwardly. Rolling her eyes, she muttered, "What do you think sitting here all night is going to do for you? You're not going to make any progress tonight."

"I just need a kickstart," he muttered, not looking at her still.

Exasperated, Alex grabbed his hand and placed it on her bump. Her nephew kicked him, as if sensing his aunt's frustrations and he, too, wanted to give Bobby a swift swat to the back of the head.

Bobby's head finally swung around. His eyes were wide, mouth agape. As if burned, he tried to yank his hand back. But Alex was insistent. She refused to let him let go.

"Wha - why -" he stammered. "You -"

Alex had just smirked, touched his cheek, and turned from the room. It had been that moment, as she walked from the squad room, she realized what her feelings for him were. That befuddled naivety that came from his utter inexperience at being around pregnancy charmed her. Just as everything else about him charmed her. Her heart warmed as she had left the building.

The very next day, he had left her a bag of Skittles and a grin. A thank you for her jumpstart. He became more attentive. He called her after she gave birth, and had given her a ride home.

With Talia, she had none of that. Alex was alone. Even with her family, she was utterly alone in the middle of the night, with nothing but memories to comfort her. And all the while, knowing she was lonely because he'd left her. Willingly.

Clearing her throat, Alex returned to the present and took a swift gulp of her scotch. She needed that liquid fire to push her forward.

"What you said, about having things to tell me," she began. "What sorts of things? What brought you back here?" Though she hadn't intended it, her voice was rigid as steel. It wasn't a bad thing, though. It was certainly better than Bobby deserved for what he did.

Glassy eyes met hers. They took her breath away.

_Moving above him, their bodies slick with sweat._

_His roaming over every inch of her, tingles of delight coursing over her skin._

_Placing a kiss on his chest, a joy so indescribable filling her heart she thought it would break free from her ribcage._

"I love you," he said. "I've always loved you. I thought about you every single day. And it didn't help that what I was writing was about everything we did together. But…" He cleared his throat. "My last sessions with Gyson, the ones before I left, I - I had a breakthrough. Or something. I don't remember what she called it. We talked about Brady...about what I'd been running from. And no matter how hard she tried to tell me my father didn't define me...none of it stopped me from thinking about what I would do to the people...the _person_ I…" He shook his head. "I'm damaged goods. My mother was mentally ill. My father, the one that raised me, was a scumbag. Then Brady…who's to say something from him doesn't trigger in me?" He swallowed hard. "I couldn't let that, uh, that hurt you. I couldn't be the reason you got hurt. Because I would have. At some point, something would happen, and I would -"

"Why do you feel like you have to be guilty for things that you've never done?" she interrupted. "Did you not trust _me_?"

"You have always been stronger than me. Smarter. I couldn't risk taking any of that away from you."

Livid, Alex rose from her seat beside them. She stared down at him. Her anger was returning full force. "Stop the martyr act. It doesn't work for you. Nothing _anyone_ could do would take away who I am. People have come close -" She gave him a pointed look. "- but no one has ever broken me." Bobby's eyes never left her. The pressure of his gaze became too much, and she was forced to look away. "I've never loved anyone the way I love you, Bobby. It was hard work, it was painful. God knows loving Joe was so much easier. But nothing would ever make me regret what I have with you. Even with you leaving, I would _never_ regret how I feel." She huffed and turned to face him again. "Do you understand me?" she demanded.

He nodded.

She crossed her arms over her chest. "Now that we have that straightened out...you were off writing a book, off the grid in the goddamn woods. What made you fly back down here? You didn't randomly push aside the shit you've apparently wanted to say.

Reaching into his pocket, Bobby produced his wallet. He held up a folded piece of paper that when unfolded was revealed to be a photo. She stepped closer and took it from him. It was the polaroid he snapped while investigating Julie Turner, the one where Alex was talking to the hostess and Bobby's lips turned up in a small, amused smile. It was worn with age, having been taken over a decade ago. She stared at it.

"I found this." He tapped the top of it. "When I moved up to Maine, I didn't take much with me. No pictures, no personal items. Just my books and the case files. I needed a fresh start. But while going through one of the boxes of case files, this fell out. I didn't even remember it being in there. And after seeing your face again for the first time in five years, something, um, something broke in me. I knew I needed to tell you why I did it. Why I ran." His voice shook. "I realized that even after everything I did to run away, I couldn't live without you. The only thing that has been good in my life for the longest time...you. There wasn't much I expected. Hell, you could have been married with a ton of kids by now. But I needed to tell you. Because that night...I didn't tell you I loved you. Not with words, anyway."

Alex quit breathing. She hadn't said it either. They didn't need to. Their touching, the caress of their fingers, the looks exchanged. It was all they'd needed.

Instead, she said, "Pfft. Yeah, the only kid I've got is the one you knocked me up with."

Bobby winced.

Holding the photo close, Alex ran her fingers across the surface. It summed up who they were perfectly. Him, the slightest hint of amusement as his brain worked through pieces of their current puzzle; her, the image of a serious investigator on her way toward climbing the ranks to the top.

"Talia is my priority," Alex said finally. She sat back down beside him. "You're going to make her a priority, too. You're going to get to know her, and you're going to be her father. You wanted to come back? That's the only way you're coming back. We'll split custody of her."

He gulped. "We're going to tell her _now_? Would she even understand?"

"She's smart. She's wondered who her dad is before. That IQ she inherited from you has her way ahead of any of the other kids. She'll handle it."

_She'll handle this better than I ever will_ , she added to herself.

Bobby's brows rose to his hairline.

She pursed her lips. "Whatever it was you and I had, that's...that's not what this is about. And no matter what you did to me, I know you wouldn't do it to her."

Bobby swallowed hard. "How do we know that for sure?" he whispered. "I never thought I would hurt you, but -"

Alex cut him off. "Stop looking for excuses! You just set yourself up for failure if you do that."

Doubt filling his eyes, Bobby shook his head. "I'm too old to do the father thing for a -"

"Don't even think about finishing that sentence," she growled. "If I can have a baby at forty, you can be the goddamn co-parent, who had the luxury of not having to deal with the morning sickness, bloating, labor, and the rumors of all your colleagues about who the potential _baby daddy_ is!" His eyes went wide, presumably because of the glare she had aimed at him. "And before you say anything stupid: _yes,_ everyone thought it was you!"

Bobby seemed to hold his breath, because he became incredibly still. His dark eyes lifted to hers and held her gaze. "You're right," he murmured. "You're absolutely right, Eames."

The last time he said those words to her he'd been trying to get back into her good graces after his stint undercover. The lengths he'd gone to in order to return to those good graces had been extreme. She briefly wondered if this moment was a sign.

Without warning, Bobby bridged the distance between them and took her hand. "I won't let you down again," he said. "I won't let her down."

Alex surprised herself by not snatching her hand away. Instead, she patted the top of his hand. "Good."

They sat together in silence. That silence said more than any words could. It settled over them like cool water, leaving Alex feeling like she was floating; if she disturbed anything, she'd sink like a stone and drown. Bobby didn't seem to mind, though. Time inched by. Alex refused to meet his gaze for the entirety of the quiet.

Swallowing hard, Alex rose to her feet. Words fell from her mouth before she could stop them. "If you want to stay on the couch, you can," she said. "To be...to be closer to Talia. If - if you want."

Bobby stood after her. "I think I'll, uh, head back to the hotel first," he said. "To grab some things. Toothbrush, that sort of thing."

Neither looked at the other. Whatever was between them, this tension, it simmered and shifted, ebbed and flowed. Alex wrung her hands together. She suddenly could feel every nerve ending prickle on her skin. Sounds disappeared, and her vision blurred. Where was this reaction coming from? All these years, all the boiling rage and sorrow, she knew what was wrong: she was alone, raising a baby she had not expected to have, her best friend gone.

Now, though? She had no idea. The rage that was there last night when he reentered her life gave way to an ambiguous sensation where she sat in limbo. The only thing she was certain of was her daughter.

Unbidden, tears trickled down her cheeks. She hid her face as best she could, but she was rooted to the spot. As she stood there, a pair of large hands cupped her face. He tilted her chin up. This time, she was unable to look away. His own eyes shone with a sheen of crystal. Sighing, he rested his forehead against hers. Their breaths mingled together. Closing her eyes, she stood there. She kept her arms folded around herself, but she relaxed into him. The familiar scent of his cologne overtook her, melding with the scotch. Everything disappeared. All she knew was the familiar comfort of the partner she missed. The familiarity hit her like a sledgehammer to the gut. She couldn't stop it, no matter how hard she struggled against it internally.

"I have spare toothbrushes," Alex finally whispered. "It's too late for you to head back into the city and back."

Bobby took a shaky breath, and pulled away. He chuckled. "Fair enough."

When she brought him a set of sheets, a pillow, and a toothbrush, she cleared her throat and jerked her thumb in the direction of the hall. "I'm going to bed," she said. "We've got a lot to do tomorrow."

Quietly, Alex retreated to the hall. Before entering her room, she turned to look at Bobby. He was setting up the sheets on the couch. "Goodnight, Bobby," she murmured.

Without waiting for a response, Alex closed herself into her room. She shivered as she undressed. Knowing he was in her living room, it set her on edge. Especially knowing what she was doing tomorrow. Part of her felt like she was rushing into this, by telling Talia who Bobby really was.

But she knew her daughter, she knew her strength. That strength came straight from Alex. Young as she was, Talia could hold her own. The question lay more with how Bobby would do.

Pulling her blanket up over herself, Alex shut the light off. After tossing and turning for a while, she stared at the ceiling. Flickers of the night she completely surrendered to how she felt continued to play on a Super 8 reel in her brain. The anger wasn't even there anymore. All she could think of was how he felt around her. His hand burning into her skin. His lips on every inch of her. His head buried between her thighs. Fire stirred in her belly, the one she felt had been lacking in her life since he left.

Bobby being in the next room didn't help.

Squeezing her legs together, trying to ignore the ache that was blooming between them, she marveled at the willingness to welcome him back. Not into her bed, but back into her life, and bringing him into her daughter's life.

Not just her daughter. _His_ daughter, too.

Amidst all her pent up pain and anger, though, Alex missed her partner. She felt a tug in her ribs, in her heart, for him. Every time she tried to remind herself her heart was just a muscle, it pulsed a little harder as soon as Bobby entered her mind. It was a deep longing she could never rid herself of.

Alex turned on her side, staring at the door, fighting with her emotions to stay in the bed. Eventually, her eyes drooped enough that she became rooted to the mattress, and there was no chance she would get up. But Bobby continued to invade her thoughts. His face flashed before her eyes. Those deep expressive eyes, the ones ingrained in her brain, blinked at her. She knew in that moment that she would never be rid of him. She never _wanted_ to be rid of him. It was the same as when he betrayed her trust all those years ago by not revealing he was undercover. God, she had been pissed. She'd wanted to throttle him for what he did, for putting himself in danger where she could have lost him.

But when the anger subsided, she brought him back. She loved him.

She would probably always bring him back, as long as he was around. It frustrated Alex to no end that she couldn't stop herself from wanting him. Even after everything he'd done. Had it not been for Talia, she probably would hold her grudge for the rest of her life. He had a long way to go in making things up to Alex, but sticking around for Talia would go a long way.

When she woke the next morning to find him making breakfast in the kitchen, Talia babbling alongside him, Alex knew he wasn't going anywhere.

XXXXX

_You can move me if you want to_

_You can move a mountain, you can move a mountain_

_You can move me if you want to_

_You can move everything, you can move everything_

_I will grow my own trees_

_While you follow the moon_

_I feel you in my knees_

_Say you'll come in soon_


	4. Hey Kid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: General disclaimers apply.
> 
> Apologies for the delay. This story wasn’t going to be very long at first, then I kept adding to it randomly. This is actually the third rendition of this chapter, because I couldn’t decide where I actually wanted to go with it. There will probably be a time jump after this chapter.
> 
> The chosen lyrics for this chapter are also meant to represent Bobby and Talia’s relationship. The POV isn’t his (this is meant to be Alex’s story), but considering what happens in this chapter, this Ingrid song felt appropriate.
> 
> Thank you for your patience and your readership. I appreciate it more than I can say!

_ Hey kid _

_ Don't go too far _

_ I can't protect you when you're shooting like a star _

_ These hours and this heart _

_ They are the only things that I have left to give _

\- Ingrid Michaelson, “Hey Kid”

XXXXX

In her dreams, Alex searched for Bobby. There was pouring rain and wind and shadowy buildings obscuring her vision. Ahead of her, where she couldn’t see, his voice called for her. Not how he usually addressed her either.

_ Alex. _

He said it the way he had when his lips were against her ear, whispered with years of longing and pent up words he’d kept inside for over a decade.

She never found him before she woke up.

After wrapping herself in a robe and pulling her hair back into a ponytail, she braced herself at the door. Heart in her throat, she prepared herself for the possibility that Bobby was gone. Morning was when she woke to find him gone from her bed all those years ago. It was possible he was gone again, that he’d changed his mind since he spoke to her last night, and he didn’t want to stick around after all.

If that was the case, Alex would be fine. She had Talia, and in the end, that was all that really mattered. Should Bobby choose to walk out on both of them, it was his loss. If he couldn’t handle this, she wasn’t going to let his departure shred the inside of her heart again.

But the moment she stepped into the hall, the fresh scent of coffee met her. Arching a brow, Alex padded across the wood floors and into her kitchen. Standing at the stove was Bobby. A pan of eggs was in front of him, and Talia perched on a spot on the counter with her stuffed tiger on her lap. Her pigtails were still rumpled from bed, and she was still dressed in her butterfly pajama onesie.

“Grandpa lets me cook with him, too,” she chirped, petting the toy in her lap. “He makes me pancakes. You don’t look like you can cook pancakes, though, Mr. Bobby.”

“Mmm,” Bobby mused, turning off the burner. “You got me there. I was never very good at making pancakes. My brother was always the one who made a mean pancake. The best I can do is toast.”

As if on cue, the toaster popped up. Talia clapped her hands together excitedly. “Okay!” Seeing that Alex had entered the kitchen, Talia’s eyes went wide and she leaped from the counter onto her step stool. “Mommy! I’m helping Mr. Bobby with breakfast.” She looked down at her toes, bashful.

Hiding a smile, Alex said, “You know you’re not supposed to be on that counter, missy.”

“It was only for a second,” Talia squeaked, holding her hands up. “I  _ swear _ !”

Unable to suppress a chuckle, Bobby met Alex’s eyes. “She really was only up there for a second. Scout’s honor.”

Talia frowned. “What’s  _ Scout’s honor _ ?”

Leaning down, Alex placed a kiss on the top of Talia’s head. “Mr. Bobby is just saying that he really means it. Just don’t do it again...you know better.”

“Coffee?” Bobby asked, pouring Alex a cup and offering it. Their fingers brushed as she accepted the mug. They held one another’s gazes, just for a moment, but it was enough that Alex knew she was blushing.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

“Mr. Bobby,  _ I  _ want some coffee, too,” Talia said, holding her hands out expectantly.

Alex let out a sharp laugh. “Oh, no,” she said. “The last thing you need is caffeine, sweetheart. Besides, you’ll probably think coffee tastes yucky.”

Pouting, Talia sat at the table and waited patiently for food to be placed in front of her. Alex, in turn, watched as Bobby served breakfast. It seemed the most natural thing in the world for him. He was charming, teasing Talia and bantering back and forth with her. After their conversation the night before, Alex was unsure of what to do going forward. It was up to her to tell Talia who Bobby was, and here she was, struck with silence at the surreal image of them all sitting around the breakfast table. She knew Bobby wouldn’t push her about rekindling whatever  _ it  _ was between them, it wasn’t in him. This was just his gentlemanly nature coming out, his natural ability to connect with children. That was something she had always marveled at when they were working the streets together at Major Case.

_ He’s already a wonderful dad, _ she said to herself.

Alex sipped her coffee. “So, Talia.” She swallowed hard. “I need to talk to you about something. Me and Mr. Bobby.” She didn’t want to, fearing the awkwardness that might come with it, but she needed to meet his gaze. Communicating solely with their eyes was their speciality - and they needed that communication right now to be successful. Bobby already knew that and he was waiting for her when she turned to him.

Talia blinked her bright brown eyes at them. “What?” She frowned. “I didn’t do anything to get in trouble...did I?”

Chuckling, Bobby shook his head. Alex’s lips turned up in the corners. “No, sweetheart. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s...it’s something else.” She took a deep breath. “You know how you’ve asked about having a -- a dad?”

Her daughter didn’t say anything.

“Well, you  _ do  _ have a dad,” she said. “And he’s...he’s with us right now.”

Lowering her voice to a whisper, Talia looked at Bobby, then at Alex, then back at Bobby again. She put her hand up over her mouth to try and hide what she was saying. “Is it Mr. Bobby?” she asked, eyes growing wider with each word.

Eyes stinging, Alex smiled. “Yeah,” she said. “It’s Mr. Bobby.”

Talia’s mouth formed a small “o” shape. She bobbed her head a few times, then looked at Bobby. “So,” she began. “You’re my daddy.”

He nodded but said nothing. His eyes said more than his voice ever could, though.

Twisting in her seat, Talia tilted her head to the side and leaned forward. Just as her father did. She studied him.

“Mr. Bobby,” she said. “Do you  _ want  _ to be my daddy?”

His eyes grew glassy. When he spoke, his voice sounded like it was being dragged over sandpaper. “Yeah,” he murmured. “More than anything.”

She blinked several times, seemingly unsure of what to do with Bobby’s answer. Sticking her hand out, she waited for him to shake it. Alex’s lips quirked into a smirk, wondering where Talia was taking this.

“You’re ‘Daddy’ now,” she said. “Nice to meet you...again.” She watched him closely, seeing his inability to say anything. Sliding down from her perch on her chair, Talia went towards Bobby and wrapped her arms around him in a hug.

Bobby’s arms went around Talia, too, his bulk nearly drowning her out. He closed his eyes, a single tear leaking out of the corner of one of them. A shaky sigh escaped his mouth. “Nice to meet you again, too.”

Alex leaned back in her seat, unsure of what to say or do. Even though she had every right to be there, she felt like an invader in a moment that Talia deserved to have for herself. Bobby may have missed their daughter’s first steps, her first words, her first smile. But this moment right here might have made up for all of that.

And just as she had felt the night before, Alex saw the man she’d known before he’d broken her heart. She saw the man she trusted with her life, and now, their daughter’s life.

The seeds of forgiveness began to sprout tiny roots within Alex’s heart. She could never forget what happened, but a five year grudge was starting to thaw. For Talia, she would try.

XXXXX

_ Hey kid _

_ Breathe out and in _

_ We've got to make it to the end so we can begin _

_ Glad to be alive, to get it right _

_ I want to take you in my arms and hold you too tight _

_ Hey kid _

XXXXX

“You’re telling me that  _ he _ is Talia’s dad.” Derek’s voice was blunt as a dull knife while he stood in the kitchen with Alex. He kept glancing at Talia and Bobby through the archway, seeming irritated by the giant man working on yet another Lego construction with the increasingly delighted child.

Alex couldn’t suppress her eyeroll. “Yep.”

“Your ex-partner. The whack job that even the boys at FDNY remember as being nuts. That’s your daughter’s dad?”

Pursing her lips, Alex glared at him. “ _ Yep _ ,” she repeated.

“You don’t think that Talia is going to, like, break down like  _ he  _ did, do you?” Derek asked, leaning against the counter.

Not even two minutes later, Derek was out of the apartment, a door shut firmly in his face.

XXXXX

Alex leaned against the doorway of Talia’s bedroom. It was bedtime. After a bath, two braids in her hair, Talia was tucked under a series of pink blankets. A sleepy grin drooped on her face. Next to her bed, reading animatedly from a Disney princess book, sat Bobby.

“You’ll protect me,” Talia yawned, as her eyes finally closed. “Right, Daddy?”

Mouth drying up, Alex swallowed hard.  _ Daddy  _ had become Talia’s most used word in the last few days.

Bobby leaned forward to place a kiss on her forehead. “As long as you’ll let me. And probably even when you won’t.”

“Cool...” Talia was asleep before she even finished her word.

Neither Bobby nor Talia noticed Alex watch them.

“If it’s alright with you,” Bobby said as he was readying himself to leave, “I’m going to stay a few more days. Probably like two more. Just to…” He didn’t even finish. He shoved his hands in his pockets and toed the ground. “Anyway, I’m going to tell the hotel --”

“You can stay on the couch,” Alex said, opening the door and ushering him out. She couldn’t stop the words, but she wasn’t even sure she wanted to stop them. And if she couldn’t keep her mouth under control, as she was seeming to have trouble with more and more in the last few days, she needed him out of the room.

Bobby cleared his throat. “Are you -- are you sure?”

“Goodnight, Bobby,” Alex said, closing the door firmly in his face.

XXXXX

“You promise to call me?” Talia asked, staring up at Bobby as they stood at the end of the security line at JFK. She had her hands on her hips, a stern expression on her small face.

Bobby squatted down to her level so he could look her straight in the eye. He held his pinkie finger up. “Promise.”

“Scout’s honor?” she asked, face still serious.

He threw his head back and laughed. “Yeah, Scout’s honor.”

Grinning with a wide smile, Talia nodded and threw her arms around his neck. “Okay,” she said. “Bye, Daddy!”

Alex watched as Bobby and Talia bid each other farewell, a small smile spreading across her face. Bobby had extended his trip to the city beyond an extra two days and into a full week. While Alex had been to work throughout the days, Talia and Bobby bonded. They did everything together. By the time Alex came home from work on the second day, Talia practically possessed a mini library from a bookstore excursion. The two were best of friends already. Johnny’s attitude had even thawed toward Bobby, likely due to a desire to indulge his granddaughter, and not because he had any intention of forgiving what had happened all those years ago.

Alex kept her arms tightly around herself, even though it was far from cold in the crowded airport terminal. Part of her was apprehensive, seeing him leave to go so far away. She knew this was different -- she was witnessing his goodbye this time, not waking to find him gone -- but there was still a sharp fear in the back of her mind that this was goodbye again.

When Bobby stood to his full height again, he smiled at Alex. She was unable to stop herself from returning it, even if it was thin and nervous.

“Have a good flight,” she said, keeping her arms where they were. She didn’t know what else to say, so she nibbled on her lower lip. She prayed she wouldn’t be blushing, but her face felt hot enough that she might have been.

Bobby gave her a small smile in return. “Yeah,” he murmured, eyes never leaving hers. “I’ll, uh...I’ll give you a call when I get back.”

Taking Talia’s hand, Alex swallowed hard. Anxiety pounded in her gut. Saying goodbye again was proving to be harder than she thought it would be. She couldn’t shake the fear he would never call, that he would say to hell with her and Talia and the last week had been nothing more than a reminder that he lived a life of solitude that allowed him to hide from his demons. Blood roared in her ears. The rush drowned out the sounds of the busy airport. Her hand grew clammy in Talia’s. She turned away, unable to watch him head through the gate.

God, had this all been a huge mistake? Alex couldn’t help but mentally smack herself on the back of the head for what she’d done, for what she’d probably just put Talia through, for --

“Eames!”

Bobby’s voice somehow broke through the barrier of sound she’d built around herself. She turned back to face him, unsure of what she would find. Bobby closed the distance between them. She thought for a moment that he might kiss her -- he looked like he was thinking about it. Instead, he reached out to cup her cheek in one hand.

Alex held her breath.

“I’m going to call,” he said. A promise shone in his dark eyes.

“Yep,” she said.

“Daddy, I think you should kiss her now,” Talia said, tugging on Bobby’s shoulderbag strap. “Mommys and daddys are supposed to kiss.” Her face grew serious. “My friend Jenna’s mommys kiss all the time when they say goodbye to each other.”

Alex shook her head with fervor, moving back from him. “No, no,” she said. “Not always, sweetheart. Me and your Daddy don’t do that.”

“Yeah,” Bobby said in a small voice. “We don’t do that.” His repetition of her words came out wounded. The feeling was almost imperceptible, and Alex could feel it from across the space between them. But she couldn’t find it in herself to feel bad about it. It was just a fact, one he would have to live with.

Talia shrugged, but Alex could tell she was disappointed. With an inward sigh, Alex couldn’t stop herself from leaning forward and up, and pressing a kiss to Bobby’s cheek. She forced herself to think it was for Talia’s benefit.

“Fly safe,” she said, managing to hold his gaze. She could still feel where his beard had prickled against her lips.

A blush lit up Bobby’s face. Alex was sure she had one to match. Christ, they were acting like teenagers. She needed him to get the hell back to Maine so she could get back to normal. His reappearance had knocked her off balance, and she was looking forward to returning to sanity. A sanity that included a normal hue to her cheeks, not one reddened by pent up sexual longing and schoolgirl butterflies in the stomach.

Bobby gave her one more nod, a cheeky and boyish grin lighting up his face. He leaned down to plant a kiss on the top of Talia’s head once more before bounding off for the security line.

“Mama, why  _ aren’t  _ you and my daddy like Jenna’s moms?” Talia asked later while Alex was helping her buckle into her carseat. “He looks at you like Jenna’s moms look at each other.”

Brushing hair back from Talia’s forehead, Alex sighed. At times, she really did curse how unnaturally perceptive her daughter could be for a four year old. She would never change a thing about Talia, but Alex could do without the questions that she had no earthly idea how to answer. “How about we talk about that when you’re older, sweetie? It’s -- it’s hard to explain.”

Talia blinked her wide dark brown eyes expectantly at her mother. “It’s okay, mama,” she said, “I can wait.”

With a smile, Alex closed the door and got into the driver’s seat. “You know? Maybe you could ask your dad. He might be able to answer better than me.”

_ Take that, Bobby _ , she thought.

But even as the small thought of payback twinkled in the back of her head, Alex couldn’t stop the small upturn at the corner of her mouth.

XXXXX

_ Hold my hand (hold my hand) _

_ And promise you won't let go again _

_ (Tell me, won't you hold my hand?) _

_ Hold my hand (hold my hand, let you hold my hand) _

_ And promise you won't let go of me again _


	5. The Chain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: General disclaimers about fanfiction apply.
> 
> Hello! We’ve come to the end of this particular story. I’ve had several ideas of more I could do with this, but ultimately those ideas were not part of wrapping this story up. There will likely be other stories to come that expand on this timeline, both between the time jump and following this chapter -- I’ve left it open specifically for that possible expansion.
> 
> Thank you all for coming with me on this journey. Please know I appreciate you!

_The sky looks pissed_

_The wind talks back_

_My bones are shifting in my skin_

_And you my love are gone_

Ingrid Michaelson, “The Chain”

_Five Years Later_

Alex stood at the large granite headstone, staring down into the grave where Johnny Eames’ casket had just been lowered. A numbness settled into her bones, leaving her staring downward with a stomach full of stone. The ceremony was over and had been for twenty minutes. Cold wind whipped across the cemetery, blowing the dead fall leaves across Alex’s path. Her dress blues scratched against her skin, the only thing she hated about wearing her full uniform. But this time when she donned them, she found herself not caring.

No tears fell from her eyes, even when she had received the news Johnny had been found in his home, having died in his sleep. Not even the tears of her siblings or her daughter brought a mist to her eyes. And as she stood now, looking down where he would never come out from, her eyes still remained dry.

Looking up, Alex breathed in the cool air of fall. She turned to where Talia stood, her eyes rimmed red and nose runny. Beside her, Bobby held her hand. Both of them watched Alex as she stood over the grave. Heaving a sigh, Alex took her hat off and went towards them. Even looking at her heartbroken daughter, Alex felt nothing.

“Mom, are you okay?” Talia asked, her voice scratchy.

Alex couldn’t even force a smile. She looked down at Talia, ran a hand through her ten year old daughter’s hair. “I’m okay, sweetie,” she said with a lifeless voice. “You ready to go home?”

Blinking several times, Talia watched Alex, like she was expecting a reaction from her mother other than the blank canvas in front of her. Talia looked up at Bobby. “Is Dad coming back with us?”

Finally looking up at Bobby, Alex searched his face for if he was still planning on coming back to her apartment, or if he was going to get on the road to head back home. Since coming into their lives, Bobby had moved back to New York, albeit to Upstate New York, where he could remain in the woods and off the grid to write, while still being able to be closer to Talia. He didn’t have to worry about a long drive.

But Bobby didn’t answer immediately. He watched Alex, his face seemingly blank. His eyes, in contrast, were bright with concern. What Talia was attempting to figure out, Bobby had already concluded.

He nodded. “Yeah, I’m coming, sweetie. For a little while.”

_And we’re going to have a chat_ , his eyes told Alex.

Alex couldn’t find it in herself to muster a response. So she took Talia’s free hand, and they started for the car.

XXXXX

Near midnight, after Talia had been in bed for a few hours, Alex found herself near the bottom of a bottle of vodka. She stared out over her apartment’s balcony, the city lights gradually turning fuzzier and fuzzier. She searched inside herself for anything worth feeling. But she couldn’t think of anything. Instead, she found herself going through a Super Eight reel of memories of her father. Every stage of her life, asking him for help when she was most lost. She thought of her graduation from the Academy, how proud Johnny had been of her. She’d been happy, so pleased that she had made him proud.

Nothing.

“Eames, you need to slow down on that.”

Alex didn’t even turn as Bobby came through the sliding door. She tilted the bottle to her lips, letting the vodka burn a trail down her throat. Bobby sighed and came around to sit on the small table in front of her. He barely fit on it, but he managed to balance himself by leaning his elbows on his knees. She still refused to look at him, but even if she did, his face would have been obscured by the fog of the alcohol in her eyes.

Taking the bottle from Alex’s grasp, Bobby tried setting it aside. Bobby taking the bottle managed to produce a reaction from her. With a scowl, she lunged forward to retrieve the bottle. She missed miserably and fell part way into his lap.

“Bobby, give it back!” she snapped. She beat a fist against his chest, but he didn’t let her go or give her a chance to get a hold on the bottle.

“No,” he said firmly.

Pushing him away, Alex fell back into her chair. She folded her arms sloppily. “Fuck off, Bobby. You need to be going h-home anyway. Tr-traffic isn’t gonna be bad.”

He shook his head. “Nope, I’m not going anywhere. Not tonight, not while you’re in this state.”

In an instant, a bubble of anger began to enlarge in her belly. After days of stony silence, Alex’s repression of emotion broke from behind its dam. Black fury shot out of her heart and spread through her body like an infection. Squinting, her eyes found Bobby’s. He was blurred, but she knew his face like it was her own. She recognized his concern, even as he tried to hide it. But he couldn’t hide from her.

“Why are you even here?” she slurred. “You -- you are so good at running and -- and throwing yourself under a rock...or, whatever. Hiding in your little cabin in the woods. Writing about...whatever you write about! That’s what you’re best at.” She could feel the blood rushing to her face, keeping her warm in the chilly fall evening. “You’re just that! A, a hider! You always have been.” Alex hiccupped, belching softly before continuing. She wagged a finger at him. “But I _know_ you, _Detective_. You can’t hide from me.”

Bobby stared at her. Not a hint of judgment was on his face. Somehow, his silent acceptance only infuriated her more. She wanted to hurt him, but all he would do was watch her. Not a single muscle in his body moved. His breathing stayed even. Leaning in closer so she could see his eyes better, she swore she saw her reflection gazing back at her. She didn’t know why, but she wanted him to laugh in her face. To taunt her for being the one who was finally losing someone important, the way he’d lost Frank and Francis all those years ago. She cursed under her breath, daring him to test the limits of her drunken anger. As intoxicated as she was, she wasn’t sure either of them could understand what it was she said.

He refused to indulge her.

When the world began to turn, he put two steadying hands on her arms to keep her upright. Alex recognized the gentleness immediately. It was the lightest touch, one he’d bestowed upon her so many times. His fingers were cool against her hot skin. She swore she saw a glow where he touched her. Or maybe it was the lights behind him. She was having a difficult time telling.

But it was that touch, that light pressure of his hands on her arms that shot the anger to oblivion. She didn’t know what sprouted up to replace it, but whatever it was, it reminded her of everything that had threatened to break her in the past. It was watching Joe’s body be zipped into a body bag. It was seeing Bobby’s desk empty after what she thought was their turning point. It was holding Talia for the first time, with the sad realization that she was probably going into motherhood alone.

It was watching Johnny’s casket being lowered into the ground.

Alex needed to squash whatever that feeling was like it was a bug. So she did the only thing she could think of to avoid it, and she launched herself forward into Bobby’s unsuspecting lap. Her movements were jerky as she tried to straddle his lap, but her mouth found his. She wrapped her arms around his neck, demanding access to his mouth, pushing her hips into him. He tasted like mint. She began trailing kisses down his neck. She tugged at the buttons of his shirt.

“Eames,” he said. “Eames, stop.”

She barked a laugh. “C’mon, Bobby,” she tried to purr. The vodka was having a negative effect on her attempts at seduction. “Fuck me. I know you want to. You’ve wanted to for _years_ , ever since you came back _._ Well, now’s your chance.”

Bobby shook his head. When she started to fumble for his belt, he took her arms firmly and held them up. He looked her in the eye once more. “No,” he said with a voice of iron. “That’s not happening.”

Even though she didn’t have the use of her arms, she could give a sloppy giggle. She made a move to capture his lips again. “I’ll let you get rough with me. You probably want to, don’t you? For me not looking hard enough for you after Tal was born.”

“You’re drunk,” he said. “I’m not doing anything with you right now. Because you’ll regret it. You’re hurting right now, you’re not thinking straight. I’ve seen you since you called me to tell me about Johnny. You are burying your grief to avoid dealing with the hurt, with the loss. You went through it with Joe, you went through it when I...when I left. And you don’t want to go through it again. But if you keep ignoring it, running from it, it’s going to just find a way to attack you in a worse way.”

Alex stopped. Her arms froze where they were in the air, only held up by Bobby’s grasp. Her gaze wavered, but it stayed on Bobby. A sound echoed within her body, one she knew was imagined; it was the sound of cracking ice, an axe jamming its way into the armor of crystal she’d built around whatever part of her held her feelings.

Bobby let go of one of her arms. It dropped into his lap, limp. He used his free hand to cup her cheek and move a sweaty lock of hair from her face. “Alex,” he murmured. “You can’t avoid it. You _have_ to let it out.”

With a wobbling chin, Alex shook her head. Her throat constricted.

Bobby nodded in return. “Yes,” he said. “You can.”

“I can’t,” she rasped. Another swing of the axe landed a blow to the barrier.

He eased her other arm down. She was still in his lap. “I know you’re afraid you’re going to fall. But like you did for me, I’m not going to let you. You hear me? I’m not going anywhere. I meant what I said when I came back: I love you. Even if you don’t feel the same way, I. Love. You. And you’re not going to fall.”

That declaration was the final swing. The armor inside her shattered, causing her to let out a strangled cry. There were no tears yet, just dry sobs that wracked her body. Something she couldn’t identify buried its way into her heart, tearing its way through the muscle like a knife through silk. It hooked its claws into her, this unidentifiable creature that sought to tear her apart.

Alex’s head fell against Bobby’s shoulder, muffling a scream she released. After holding back the agonized sounds and tears, everything came flooding out of her like a demon being released from hell. She felt the urge to vomit, and it was not because of the bottle of vodka she had consumed.

Bobby’s arms encapsulated in, wrapping around her like a protective wall of ivy that no one would be able to penetrate. He rocked her back and forth as the tears flowed, as the sobs ripped from her throat.

In her head, Alex heard Johnny’s voice.

_I’ve always known he loved you, sweetheart. That was never a secret._

“He shouldn’t be gone!” she wept, her nose running and staining Bobby’s shirt. The next words that tumbled from her mouth were a jumble of syllables and incoherent phrases. Somewhere in the mix was Johnny’s name and apologies for getting snot all over Bobby’s shirt.

Bobby kept her close and nodded. “I know,” he repeated over and over.

Time became meaningless. Alex didn’t know how long she cried. She barely felt Bobby lift her up to carry her to her room, putting her gently on her bed and tucking her in. When he tried to move away, she sank her hands into his arm giving him a yank. He landed haphazardly on top of her.

“Don’t go anywhere,” she mumbled into his hair.

He sat up. She could barely make out his form in the dark, but she thought he might have looked hesitant. Moving over in her bed, she dragged him onto the mattress. She slurred something about him not having to worry about her trying to jump his bones, that she was too tired now. When he finally relented, she pulled his arm over her. She didn’t know how to tell him she needed him here. Not for sex. No, she needed him here because she _wanted_ him here. She wanted that strength that his arms held. She wanted the soft intimacy only he could give her. She wanted him to contain the parts of her that were flowing from her faster than an oil spill.

With a foggy head, Alex listened to the sound of Bobby’s breathing as it evened out into sleep. His breath was warm on the nape of her neck. Tears dripped from her eyes onto her pillow.

She fought sleep as long as she could, not wanting to surrender to whatever alcohol soaked dreams she might fall into. During her fight, her mind churned with images and sounds. She swore she heard the sound of sirens, gunshots, bombs going off. Wheels of color flashed. Blood red. Putrid green. Murky black. Alex’s lungs filled with stone, cutting off her breath. Her body lay still, but some ethereal part of her writhed and clawed for air.

She wanted to scream. The more she fought sleep, the worse her imagination became. Grief plunged her deeper into the dark. She thought maybe she blacked out, but how was that possible if she was still awake?

Voices emerged. Moments in time zipped around her.

A pair of lovers screamed at one another, their three children watching from the top of the stairs.

A mother returned home after a nightmare, telling her sons she had been in a bad car accident.

A serial killer, desperate for approval. Tears crept down her face as she laughed and hoisted a limp body to hang from the ceiling.

A young man, terrified and squinting through his isolation cell as a fellow prisoner was dragged towards the hell called Heaven.

A teenage girl, blonde hair covering her face, bent over into a ball. Sobs shook her body. Various voices crowded around the girl, bellowing or whispering or hissing insults.

Alex struggled to make sense of what she saw. The vodka still soaked her judgment, but she recognized all the people she saw. Their names floated just outside her grasp.

But she found one name. When she saw two people, an uneven pairing in their statures, she knew his name. She watched as the taller one took the smaller one by the hand. His face was a moving shadow, his voice was muffled. She knew him, though.

_That instability, that being afraid of what he could do to someone he loves...I struggled with that everyday._

Johnny’s face never materialized, but his voice floated through her head. With shaky breaths, the room spun around Alex. She closed her eyes. Her father’s words, whether she could understand them or not, finally lulled her to sleep.

XXXXX

When Alex’s eyes opened, afternoon light was streaming into her bedroom. Her bones were lead in her skin. Her tongue was swollen and scratchy. Her head pounded.

_God damn_ , she thought, struggling to sit up. _I am_ never _drinking again._

But before she could sit up fully, she realized there was a pair of arms around her waist. She frowned. Beside her, Bobby was asleep. His eyes flitted back and forth behind his lids, lost to slumber. She resisted the urge to groan. Shame washed through her. What more could she do to mess up her life? What more could she possibly do to treat Bobby worse? She vaguely remembered pulling him into bed with her after she tried to have messy drunk sex with him.

Alex looked at the clock. One o’clock in the afternoon. Her eyes went wide. What would she say to Talia if she saw Bobby coming out of her room? How the hell could she explain this? Talia had tried over the years to scheme her parents together, but --

She needed to stop. She couldn’t do this. She needed Bobby to talk this over with her.

Before she could wake him though, Alex took in the sight of him. This was her first time waking up to see him in her bed. Her heart fluttered. Reaching her hand out, she paused before touching his forehead. She had been terribly cruel to him the previous night, and the fact he was willing to be in here, much less holding her, shocked her.

Despite her apprehension, Alex couldn’t say she was upset to find him here. Part of her just wanted to lay back down with him until all the agony in her heart faded away to a dull ache.

Pulling her arm back, Alex stared at him. Her face was stony, but behind her face was a storm of uncertainty. She pushed it away.

Nudging Bobby in the shoulder, Alex said, “Bobby. Bobby, wake up.” Her voice was scratchy like steel wool.

Alex’s wake up caused him to open his eyes. His face was thick with sleep. A yawn lumbered from his lips.

“How do you feel right now?” he asked.

“Like someone took a bat to my skull,” she said, waving away his concern. “Where’s Talia? Have we been in here all day?”

Bobby sat up beside her, rubbing his face. Dark circles were under his eyes. “No, I was up when she was this morning. She’s with your sister. I called Liz and told her...well, I told her you’d had a bit much to drink last night and that you would need some time for yourself today. She’s just waiting for us to call when we want to pick Tal up.”

More memories of the last night flooded back to Alex. The images of events she hadn’t even seen swam in her brain. It had been some sort of hallucination, fueled by alcohol and desperation and grief. Her father was gone, and Alex had not felt this lost in a long time. She wanted something to cling to. She needed a life raft.

But with those memories came a rush of nausea. She stumbled up from the bed, landing on her knees once before rushing to the bathroom to hug the toilet bowl. With her stomach empty, throat stinging, Alex brushed her teeth and rinsed her mouth out with mouthwash until she couldn’t feel her tongue. She found her reflection in the mirror. She looked like crap. Her hair was haphazard and her eyes were red. The t-shirt she wore was rumpled. Rubbing her forehead, she once again tried to banish everything from the night before.

Groaning, she went to the living room. Bobby was waiting on the couch with a mug of steaming coffee, water, and a bottle of ibuprofen. He poured the maximum dose of pain killers into her outstretched hand and watched as she swallowed.

“Those should kick in in about twenty minutes,” he said as Alex sat beside him.

She nodded and took a sip of the coffee. Black and strong enough to stop a semi truck. She refused to look at him, but she nodded her thanks.

“How much do you, uh, remember from last night?” he asked after a long moment of silence.

Alex huffed a sarcastic laugh. Everything was tinged with fuzz, but she remembered it all. Throwing herself into his lap. Taunting him to avoid her own pain. Tumbling into bed and forcing him to hold her until she fell asleep. The terrifying images dredged up in her vain attempt to stay awake.

Guilt shook her bones. With a glance at him, she put the mug down on the coffee table. She owed him one hell of an apology.

“I’m so sorry, Bobby,” she whispered. She rubbed her face. “I -- I was terrible. And basically assaulted you.”

Bobby waved her words away, nonchalant. “You were hurting,” he said. “I know you didn’t mean it.”

Alex bent her head and sighed. Johnny’s voice in her head almost brought tears to her eyes. She blinked them away, firm in her resolve to prove to herself she would make it past this pain.

“But I did mean it, Bobby,” she said. “I did last night, at least. I wanted to hurt you because of how it felt when you left. I wanted to distract from what I was feeling, and -- and make _you_ feel as miserable as I was. And I think it’s because I didn’t want to be alone.” Her face burned. “I wanted to use you to make myself feel better. And I thought...I thought if I hurt you enough, you’d get so angry, and...”

He shook his head. “Eames, you have nothing to apologize for,” he said. “After all the things I’ve made you deal with over the years, I’d say being your punching bag one evening is a small price to pay. A price I’d pay over and over.”

In the silence that stretched between them, Alex thought back to everything they’d ever been through together. Every case they endured. Rescuing one another, from perps and from demons. A baby. Two decades of being the most important person in each other’s lives zoomed before her eyes. As tired as he made her, she also knew she wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.

Rubbing her face, Alex tried to hide behind her hands. She wasn’t sure what it was about last night that shifted everything, but her hangover had her thinking about what she had thought about for five years now. She didn’t want any promises from him.

She just wanted him.

_Even if you don’t feel the same way, I. Love. You._

Alex swallowed hard. “Did you mean what you said last night?” It was difficult to imagine him lying to her when she was in such a state, but she supposed it was possible. She didn’t know what she wanted the answer to be, though. Did the yes or the no come with more complications? Her throat grew dry.

“Which part?” he asked.

She rolled her eyes. “You know damn well I’m talking about the ‘I love you,’” she muttered. “I need to know if you meant it.” She was beginning to realize what she hoped the answer would be.

“Do you think I _didn’t_ mean it?” he asked, blinking.

He was too smart not to know her answer. He knew she knew he wouldn’t lie to her. It was the most Bobby-answer she could think of.

“I don’t know, _did_ you mean it?”

Giving her a wide grin, Bobby said, “I might just leave you in suspense. Seems like you --”

“Oh, fuck off!” Alex pushed him playfully, glancing at him sideways with the slightest upturn of her lips.

Laughing, Bobby’s expression softened. His heart went into his eyes. “I meant it,” he said. “Every word.” When she didn’t respond, he laid his hand over hers. “And I’m not pressuring you into anything. What I did...it was unforgivable. I only wanted you to know how I felt.”

Alex turned her palm upwards in his hand, clasping her fingers around his. “You wouldn’t be doing any pressuring,” she murmured. “It’s not pressuring if it’s something I want.” Leaning into him, Alex pulled his hand to her lips and pressed a gentle kiss on it. He nuzzled his nose into her ear. She smiled, pushing him backwards onto the couch and straddled him. Cupping both sides of his face, she kissed him soft and slow. Her hands roamed his chest just as he cupped her hips. The room spun. The images from the night before dissolved. Her grief dulled as she allowed herself to get lost in Bobby. He kissed her like a drowning man searching air, consuming her as she consumed him.

Sighing, she wrapped her arms around his neck. She kissed her way from his mouth, up his cheek, over his ear, and finally down his neck. This was far better than what her plans to diminish her grief had been last night. With a giggle -- something she would deny doing if he ever told anyone else she’d made the noise -- she grazed her teeth across his earlobe and murmured what she wanted him to do to her. He ran his hands up her sides, one sliding up into her shirt. His hand cupped her face, gently pulling her neck back so he could look at her.

“You know, Talia is going to be annoyed that she didn’t engineer us getting back together,” Bobby said, helping Alex pull her shirt up over her head. He kissed her collarbone.

Alex ran her hand through his hair, looking down at him from her perch on his lap. “Didn’t she, though? If it hadn’t been for her, I might never have let you back in.”

He smiled. “You’re remarkable, you know that right?”

Reaching behind her, she unhooked her bra and tossed it aside. With hasty fingers, she started tugging the buttons of his shirt. She traced the coarse hair on his chest. “You know you don’t have to charm me, Bobby,” she teased. “You’ve already got my shirt off.”

“That’s not what I mean,” he laughed, helping her with the last few buttons on his shirt.

“Oh? What do you mean by that then?” She buried her face in his neck.

He tangled his fingers in her hair. “You forgave the most unforgiving of men,” he said. “I didn’t deserve any of it.”

She laughed. “Well, it only took five years to let you back in,” she said. “I hold a mean grudge.”

“Tell me about it,” he said, giving her access to the button on his pants.

As they continued tearing off each other’s clothes, Alex paused. She held his hands, entangling their fingers. “I don’t know if I’ve ever said it to you,” she whispered, “but I love you.”

Bobby shook his head, kissing her knuckles. “You’ve never had to say it,” he said, capturing her lips.

Alex smiled against his lips. She melded her body with his, seeking the warmth and comfort his arms gave her. As they re-explored one another, her whole being felt like it was emitting a soft glow. Sugary sweet tingles filled her chest, ones she hoped he would share with her. The weight of Johnny’s death suddenly wasn’t all consuming -- she had someone to help her through the grief, to keep her from losing herself.

She had no idea what their future held. All she knew is she wanted Bobby in it.

And as he laid her back into the cushions, Alex slid the chain from off her heart and welcomed him back.

_And if you come around again_

_Then I will take the chain from off the door_


End file.
